Frank Hart: the First Black Ultrarunning Star, with Davy Crockett (episode 265)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:05] Welcome to hub history where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 265 Frank hart, the first black ultra running star with Davy Crockett.
Hi, I’m jake. This week. I’m talking about Frank hart who was a transplant to boston who became a famous star in a sport that doesn’t really exist anymore.
Hart was a pedestrian competing in grueling six day races where the winner was the person who could run, walk or even crawl the most miles by the time the clock ran out,
he made his racing debut in the beanpot tramp here in boston but he followed the money to races in new york London san Francisco and beyond becoming one of America’s first famous black athletes.

[0:59] However, Frank hart’s career declined along with the popularity of pedestrian ism.
While at the same time the rise of jim crow raised new hurdles for a black competitor,
to tell us about the rise and fall of Frank Hart, I’ll be joined in just a few minutes by Davy Crockett, the host of the ultra running history podcast and author of a new biography of Frank Hart.

[1:21] But before we talk about Frank Hart and the sport of pedestrian is um, I just want to pause and say thank you to everyone who supports the show on patreon.
I think by now it’s probably clear that this podcast is a labor of love.
It’s how I spend my evenings and almost all my weekends and it’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done, even if most of that reward is of the non monetary variety with your support.
However, I can at least break even on the day to day expenses of creating and publishing a fortnightly show.
Your sponsorship pays for things like web hosting and security, podcast, media hosting and online audio processing tools.
Thanks to listeners like Deborah, our first Patreon sponsor to upgrade to our new $50 a month, Oliver Wendell Holmes membership tier.
We’re even slowly chipping away at the huge payment I had to make to settle a lawsuit this fall to Deborah and to everyone who already supports the show. Thank you.
And if you’re not yet a sponsor and you’d like to start for as little as $2 a month, just go to patreon dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com and click on the support us link and thanks again to,
all our new and returning sponsors.

[2:40] I’m joined now by Davy Crockett. Davy is a dedicated ultra runner, having completed over 100 mile races.
He’s also a race director, a serious student of ultra running history.
The director of the American Ultra Running Hall of Fame and host of the ultra running history podcast Before starting his research into the history of ultra running. He also wrote four books about American westward expansion.
So Davy Crockett welcome to the show.

Davy Crockett:
[3:11] It’s great to be here, thanks for having me.

Jake:
[3:13] Now the title of the book is Frank hart, the first black ultra running star, and I just want to start with the definition of ultra running.
I think a lot of our listeners probably think that people who run marathons are crazy and I’m somebody who used to run marathons.
And I think ultra running is pretty crazy, so far less crazy listeners.
What is ultra running and what makes it different from other distance running or other endurance sports?

Davy Crockett:
[3:40] Yeah, ultra running is is crazier than marathon running.
It’s longer. So people think of it kind of as anything beyond the marathon distance beyond 26.2.
So there’s various races of, of many distances by the shortest is 50 k, about 31 miles.
And it goes up clear to about 1000 miles. But very popular distance is 100 miles.
And in history it got its name ultra running around the 1980s.
Before then, it really didn’t have a name as long distance running, but back in the 19th century where we’ll talk about it was called pedestrian is um, if you can believe that pedestrians and they were called Pedestrians.

Jake:
[4:30] From a from a historic perspective, a 19th century perspective, how did pedestrian is um start it didn’t really start as a running sport, it doesn’t sound like.

Davy Crockett:
[4:39] Yeah, it started as a walking sport, really.
Uh, and it’s existed for clear back into the 17 hundreds or earlier,
where, you know, people just get in their heads these crazy ideas of, oh, I can walk from this town to this town 200 miles and I’m going to do it in these number of days and I’m gonna get my name in the newspaper.
And and that’s what a lot of it was over the, over the decades and centuries, was where people just seeing how far they could push their bodies.
Marathons didn’t come into existence really until the early 1900s.

Jake:
[5:20] How did how did it make the shift from just somebody trying to get their name in the paper by covering a certain amount of distance and promoting it to being a competitive sport and a spectator sport?
How did it start to gain popularity, sort of, I guess, the mid-19th century.

Davy Crockett:
[5:36] Well, first is wagering, wagering was, was a big part of this thing.
So people would, would make wagers saying, hey, I can go this distance in this time and I’ll put up this amount of money, uh, as a bet and then people would bet against it and it, it started becoming very, very big.
I mean way back in the 18 hundreds, they used one very popular thing was to try to go 1000 miles.

[6:06] One mile an hour for 1000 hours and they would do this, yeah, they did something like a half mile back and forth course in front of a pub in England.
And so they go back and forth and hundreds and thousands of people would come and watch, make wagers get drunk and, and see if this person could do it.
And, and it became a very popular thing to try to do 1000 miles and 1000 hours. A lot of people were successful.
And so that’s 11 version of it. Um, but where it really happened was there was a fellow name,
Edward Payson Weston in the late 18 hundreds who, he got a lot of attention when he made a bet that he was going to walk from boston,
to Washington D. C.
In 18 61 to attend Lincoln’s inauguration.
And so he had to do it within a certain, I think within 10 days.
And he almost made it.
He came up a little bit late, but he did attend the inaugural ball, but it was, the story went all over the newspapers, all over the country about this and he gained really great fame.

[7:26] And um so he became the, but he was a Walker, strict Walker and he wanted to,
after a while wanted to try to walk 500 miles in six days and he kept trying and trying,
and failing and failing, but he still got attention.

Jake:
[7:48] And those, those early six day races, those were those what was known as a heel toe competition. So so what does that mean?

Davy Crockett:
[7:54] Yes correct. It means you’ve got to have a foot on the ground at all times.
Um if you’re not then you’re really jogging or running.
So, so and this was popular in America more than it was in England at the time being this strict heel toe walking. So some of them became very good and Edward Payson Weston became very good.
What happened was P. T. Barnum, I hope everybody knows who that is of circus fame.

Jake:
[8:22] P. T. Barnum has made a past, he’s made a past appearance on the podcast as basically stealing the business out from under the creator of the first aquarium in boston. So he’s been a villain, a villain on our podcast.

Davy Crockett:
[8:35] Oh yeah, the saying that some attribute to him is there’s a sucker born every minute.
He combined that with this ultra running or pedestrian is um, he said, well, let me take Edward Payson Weston, Bring them inside My giant,
Hippodrome in New York City, a big, giant tent.
He got later moved to Boston for a time, but um, it was this massive,
circus tent and so he got the idea, hey, let’s have this guy,
go around in circles on a track for days and then I can bring in a lot of these suckers who will pay admission to watch him 24 hours a day.
And surprisingly it worked. I mean thousands of people would come and watch him.
So then after a while, 18 75 then it got the idea of, well, let’s not just have a guy trying to beat the clock, let’s have people race against each other.
And so that’s when the first six day race,
occurred in, in new york city, in front of tens of thousands of people who would come and watch and wager and cheer and boo and get drunk and listen to bands.
They have all sorts of events going on circus events. It was, it was reality tv without a tv back then.

Jake:
[10:00] Yeah, it sounds like a pretty good time. I’ve got to be honest, as the sport of pedestrian is, um, is sort of coming of age in the mid 19th century.
Here in boston, a young man named Frank Hart is also coming of age.
And like a lot of Bostonians today, including me, Frank hart was a transplant.
So what did you find out about his background where he had come from? How did he end up in boston?

Davy Crockett:
[10:27] He came to boston in 18 66. So right after the civil war ended and he immigrated from Haiti,
and we don’t know why what condition but he, he moved to boston and why boston, he went to the west end of boston which which I understand was very favorable to blacks at the time.
You know, they political say in what was going on in their community. So it was a pretty nice place to live by Cambridge Avenue.
I believe boston general Hospital has kind of taken over a lot of the blocks, but that’s.

Jake:
[11:02] Yeah, mass general. Around that time, I think that was the 6th ward.
That was probably the most concentrated black political power of any place in the us than that one voting ward in Boston, just a such a high concentration of black population and very politically engaged and enabled.

Davy Crockett:
[11:20] So he lived in various various places there on North Anderson Street, I think it’s now a parking garage for the hospital.
But so he was, he became a grocery clerk uh, as a young man and you know, trying to try to survive but seemed to do pretty well.
But but once this sport, this sport started taking off in 1878 where these walkers could,
make enormous amounts of winning money and be very successful.
And in early 18 7 I think in 18 78,
the british introduced new rules for the sport and they called it go as you please,
which means you could run as well as walk because the british were better at running than they were at walking and they kept getting beaten by the americans.
So they wanted to level the playing field and so Frank Hart black runner decided, hey this is the way for me to start making money for my family.
Let let me let me try, he was a pretty good athlete. He had done some long distance endurance rolling that he he was successful in in the area.
But he said, let me let me try to run.

Jake:
[12:39] Do you have any sense of how well trained he was as a pedestrian going into that first race?

Davy Crockett:
[12:45] He said he didn’t have a lot of training, but he he had some, there was somebody that seemed to be helping him, but it was still a pretty unknown going into this, this first race that he would do in boston.

Jake:
[12:57] Tell us about that first event in boston. How much do you, did you uncover about where it was held? What sort of event it was and what the reaction was like from the crowd and the other athletes when they learned that they’d be competing against the black man.

Davy Crockett:
[13:11] Yeah, that’s really interesting. So it was held in the Boston Music Hall that was born in 1852 and it still exists. But today it’s known as the Orpheum Theatre, if that rings a bell with you.

Jake:
[13:25] It was also the first place. The boston Symphony performed a lot of landmarks in the boston boston music Hall.

Davy Crockett:
[13:30] But they would do other events in there somehow. They got decided, well we’re going to start doing these pedestrian races in there and constructed a track. I can’t remember how many laps to the mile it was. It was probably, you know, probably about 15 or so.
So it’s probably a smaller track.
That facility is about 130 ft long, 70 ft wide. It could fit a few people in there.
Now this race was open to anybody and it was a 30 hour race. So it was, how many miles can you do in 30 hours?
And the winner would be the most miles.

Jake:
[14:07] Before modern chip timing right now, if I were to go out and join a road race, I’d have an R. F. I. D. Chip on the back of my bib. That would would tell the race officials if I tried to cut the course. If I made all the checkpoints, I was supposed to make.
How was timing and record keeping and who was keeping track of the laps in a race like that?

Davy Crockett:
[14:23] It was tough. So they would at least have to have one scorekeeper for each runner who would keep track of of the laps and write them down and get them to some, some person who’s keeping the overall score.

Jake:
[14:37] Just be on a chalkboard or something as he went, his hash marks. Okay.

Davy Crockett:
[14:41] They always had trouble and the runners would think that they were being cheated out of laps and sometimes get pretty pretty violent.
That was part of the fun for the Spectators. Uh they,
especially the six day races, they would say that after the third day the runners started going what they called cranky, which is with, with sleep deprivation.
They started doing really crazy things would make the Spectators laugh and and you know, again, it’s like a reality show that they participated in. That was a lot of fun for them.

[15:19] But anyway, so Frank he he comes to this this race.
Um nobody knew him, they didn’t even know he was black,
and it was put on by a man named fred Englehardt who was a newspaper man and how Frank Leslie’s sporting times.
Uh he came to the starting line so fred announced all the runners and when he got to he announced Frank and then his fellow runners looked at him and they objected.
They said no we’re not going to run with a black man.
And fred um said, well if you’re not going to run you can get out because Frank is going to run,
and he did and none of the none of the runners, they all decided to participate.
Yeah, but they didn’t treat him very good, some didn’t treat him very good.
They tried to tried to pull tricks on them is what they call it, where I think they were trying to get him mad and get thrown out of the race.
And then yeah dirty tricks could be like clipping heels, clipping his heels or as they pass them on the track, pushing them or they do all sorts of things that would get under their collars.

Jake:
[16:26] Some of those tricks sound pretty dirty.

[16:38] And I could be confusing this with the later race, but at some point either a spectator, maybe even one of the other competitors basically tried to pepper spray him during the way through black pepper into his face.

Davy Crockett:
[16:50] Yeah, so somebody, I think probably a spectator tried to throw Pepper in his face,
but the race director um fred Englehardt saw it happen and so he came down on the track and he decked the guy, he,
gave him one and then he made an announcement to everyone if if if you didn’t leave him alone,
that I will do the same thing to you.
And so then after that people behave. So it was really this Frank. Engelhardt was really pretty good man sticking up for, for Frank.

Jake:
[17:22] Yeah, it sounds like he had a good debut. How how did he finish in that first race?

Davy Crockett:
[17:27] He won, he won the race, I think it was 100 and 11 miles that he did in those 30 hours, which is good, but but he would do much, much better after that.
But that was a good debut for Boston.

Jake:
[17:42] Yeah, for sure. The good debut for anybody, it sounds like part of the reason they would start chalking up higher and higher mile totals is that he got more serious about training.
What point in his career did Frank Hart bring on a coach, a trainer? More of a team to help him prepare for races?

Davy Crockett:
[18:02] It was pretty quick. Um you know, he did, he did another race that was in the back bay boston.
Uh They put up this giant, they called it the mammoth tent and they had a multiple state race.
Uh maine Rhode island massachusetts where they would have,
runners run for six hours a day, kind of in a re,
relay, but each runner would have to run six hours pile up as many miles as they could and then the total over a number of,
days would determine the winner and Frank did really good in that he was the second furthest runner in that massachusetts didn’t win. Sorry about that, but.

Jake:
[18:51] Oh well, So was that, was that the race that was called the bean pot tramp?

Davy Crockett:
[18:57] It was the beanpot tramp.

Jake:
[19:00] That’s, that was funny to read because for for a lot of our listeners will know the beanpot as a local hockey championship. College hockey sort of a local bragging, right championship.
So it’s funny to hear that that goes pretty far back and yeah, it’s interesting. That’s right in the middle of the filling of the title. Back bay.

Davy Crockett:
[19:11] That was 1879. Yeah.

Jake:
[19:19] The back bay had been just a tidal marsh for all of prehistory up until the early 19th century and is in the middle of a decades long project to fill it in and create this elite residential neighborhood.
But while it was partially filled and not yet fully developed, they used it for circuses, rodeos.
There was a, we had a past episode about a giant um, peace jubilee in the world, what was at the time by volume, the world’s largest building.
So it’s, it’s funny to see also more sporting events being held there. So I had never known about that tent and this event, that was pretty cool.

Davy Crockett:
[19:57] Well. And then then a couple of years later he raised in another another race there in the Back Bay. Now it was in a giant building that only existed for seven years, had had many different names.
Mechanics Hall, um, New new England Institute Fair Building.
Um, It covered covered five acres and I I figured out where it was.
So it’s stood where North Northeastern University is, I think the PE building,
where the PE building is today, but it was on a five acre place and but it was, it was massive because,
the track inside was only five laps to a mile, which is, which is one of the bigger trap tracks that I’ve seen in these indoor things.

Jake:
[20:46] What would be more typical for a attract size.

Davy Crockett:
[20:49] Well, they did a lot of these in Madison Square Garden, the old Madison Square Garden in new york city and that was about eight, but they were small as like 25 to a mile, just tiny, they had a lot of corners.

Jake:
[21:03] That sounds painful doing that many laps?

Davy Crockett:
[21:06] But you asked if he started training. So he, he finally did, he not only did he get a trainer, but he got the best in the United States.
Um, Daniel leary became the next best of these pedestrians after Edward, Payson Weston and Daniel O’leary was from Chicago,
A Irish American who was just determined to be the best and he became the best of his time in those 1870s,
he he was very inclusive in fact, a few months before he got involved with Frank, he was training women.

[21:46] And the women started entering this sport and doing really well and so he, he had a bunch of women that he would train and help, but he,
Frank, he saw how good Frank was doing and he took him under his wing and trained him to, to, to do it just like he did all the techniques,
All the way you fuel and all the things that you need to do to go go the distance.
And then the next really big race was September of 1879, he went to do this massive race in Madison Square garden and so,
this is not just a local boston thing anymore.
He, he went there with the best in the world and um at first, at the pre race meeting, this Edward Payson Weston objected to having a black man run with them.
And um, he was pretty adamant about it.
And so they debated it. But then the person that was in charge of the race, he was from England said, nope, we’re gonna let, we’re gonna let Frank run.

[22:53] And um, everybody signed up.
In fact, when Frank then signed the agreement, the pre race agreement, everybody clapped and and supported him.
So that, that was pretty nice. But this was a, this was a big, big time race.
And um, the crowd after a while started to really embrace them, but they noticed that he walked just like this Daniel O’leary did used all the same same techniques.
So they gave him a nickname and they called him black dan.
And you might think that’s derogatory, but it wasn’t, it was a great compliment.

Jake:
[23:32] So they’re comparing him to one of the greatest of the sport basically.

Davy Crockett:
[23:35] That’s correct. In fact, they asked him, they said, what do you think about this? And, and he said, well, I hope Daniel leary isn’t offended.
I, but he thought it was really hit a lot of Daniel o’leary and others taking care of him during this race. You know, go for six days.
And the idea of this, six days you, you go as far as you can, but the clock is always ticking so you can sleep, you can take rests, they would take them for a Turkish bath even.

Jake:
[24:08] I was shocked to read that, that he left the building, went to an offsite location, had a Turkish bath came back and continued competition.
So were there any rules at all other than the number of the counting of laps ends at the end of the sixth day? Was that the only rule out there.

Davy Crockett:
[24:24] Yeah, so these go as you please races, you can crawl, you can do whatever you want.

Jake:
[24:29] There must be a lot of strategy involved around fueling. Alright. You know what, what and when you eat how much and when to sleep, when to be head to head with the other competitors and when to try to be the only one on the track.
Do you have a sense for how somebody like Frank hart who had a coach and would have been, I’m sure trying to approach these races strategically. What what’s the race day strategy?

Davy Crockett:
[24:52] Yeah, they would, it would evolve over over time, but it seems like most of them, you would think, well, maybe a good strategy is doing an even pace, you know, across all these six days and then schedule when you sleep.
It seems like most of them tried to go all out that first day.
In fact, sometimes there was wagers that where they would get a bonus if they would reach a certain number of miles the first day, like 100 and 20 miles or something like that.
So they would sometimes go all out and I’ve run 24 hour races and 48 hour races, and I was kind of the same way.
I would just that first day, just go out and try to bank all the miles and then try to hold on to the end.
Um But for fueling, it’s,
the, it’s, you know, they have to figure this out, it’s a balance of carbohydrates and,
electrolytes um to to make sure that all those things are balanced and they didn’t know what those were back then, but they knew that they had, they understood that they taking in salt would seem to be a good thing.

[25:58] Uh and would keep you, so you weren’t nauseous, but they drank a lot of t a lot of tea and ate a lot of beef mutton, that’s what they called it.
Um So a lot of, a lot of protein, eggs, all sorts of things, and but then to stimulate them, they would they would drink a lot of booze to uh.

Jake:
[26:23] I don’t know if that would have the right effect on me or not. I think I’d want to lay down and take a nap.

Davy Crockett:
[26:26] Well, I think some of these runners got drunk after a while too.

Jake:
[26:31] Yeah. Well after a few 100 miles, it probably doesn’t take much to get drunk either.

Davy Crockett:
[26:35] Oh and loss of sleep to, because some of these would at least two days without sleeping at all.
But the good ones finally were able to figure out and Frank was very good about this. He could, he could hit the pillow and immediately go to sleep.
And and then his trainers would wake him up at a certain designated period of time to try to try to keep them in the in the running.
And then this first big race he did, he did really well. He um he didn’t win it.
Uh and mostly because he he ran a six day race only two weeks before this.
Uh I think in Rhode island, I think it’s a big mistake, but he still, I mean he he came in fourth place and what and one what equivalent value today is,
$100,000 of winnings.

Jake:
[27:32] That’ll make you subject your body to a lot of torture.

Davy Crockett:
[27:34] Huh? And he really, he really took over the, the audience.
Um One tradition back then is is women and even men would purchase bouquets at these stands in Madison Square Garden and sometimes they’d be giant,
almost like funeral arrangements um that they would then bring down to the track and award their favorite runner and then the runner would try to yeah, he put it by his little cabin. They all had little cabins.

Jake:
[28:07] I I meant to ask that so they’re sleeping or eating they had a place to retreat to, it sounds like almost a cabana.

Davy Crockett:
[28:10] Yeah, stoves, you know, change their clothes, all sorts of things, would, would go on in there and Frank Frank.
Just thought it was so funny to see these white guys waiting on him all the time, which is very interesting. In fact, he’d make jokes, he’d say waiter, waiter, come and come and bring me this and they’d all laugh and have a good time with them.
But So it was that it was that race that really got his attention and he came back to Boston as as their hero.
I mean their local hero, he he was it if you can think of it bigger than any baseball person back then or any other sport.
He was the greatest sports legend in Boston at the time there in 1879 and 1880.

Jake:
[29:01] And with the equivalent of $100,000 in his pocket, he didn’t have to worry about being a grocery clerk at that point, backing up a little bit too Frank hearts.
Personal life from the, from the book. It sounds like it was hard to uncover a lot of the details about his early years, his his life growing up.
But you were able to pick up the trail And I think 1875 at least to start adding some detail.
So what what could you find out about his personal life in Boston?

Davy Crockett:
[29:31] He had a family. So he had had had married pretty young I think around 18 or 19 years old and had Children.
However, several of his Children died pretty young, which probably was common of the era died when they were one or two or three years old.
So in fact, you know, worked on his family history. He only had, he had two Children that survived to adulthood.

Jake:
[29:57] How much could you learn about his wife?

Davy Crockett:
[30:00] Not, not much at all, which was kind of unusual because for a lot of these runners back then they would mention their wives.
But it seemed like after a while when he became rich and famous, he spent less and less time with his family.
He would travel along and in, in different cities and unfortunately he got a reputation of being somewhat of a womanizer.
So he probably probably, and you can think of this again, professional sports, there’s a lot of enduring people out there that that want want the attention,
of these famous people And so he kind of had his, his, his pick of fans to get to know.

Jake:
[30:42] It sounds like there’s confusion even about the name Frank Hart that either wasn’t his birth name or may not have been his birth name. How did he end up with the name Frank Hart? What did you find out there?

Davy Crockett:
[30:54] Running historians in the past had thought that Frank Hart was his stage name and I did too until I started looking into this and looking into some legal documents, birth records of his Children,
before he was a runner, he was using the name Frank Hart,
but he had told people that his real name was fred hitch born and in fact he, he was buried under that name of fred hitch born.
So you can speculate what that is, what I’m guessing is, you know, somehow he came to boston.
I think he probably was adopted by a Hart family,
and probably probably further raised by the hearts would be my guess, but we don’t know for sure clearly among,
clearly went by Frank Hart for most most of his time, but there was a comment made to his closest friends.
They knew he was fred hitch born.

Jake:
[31:52] But at least at the time when he’s coming back to boston after winning that first, um, the asleep belt race, he’s being known even outside the running scene, by his acquaintances in boston, people know him as Frank Hart.

Davy Crockett:
[32:04] Yeah, Frank Hart, you know, just think of the ratio racial stereotypes of the time and even today, they were just surprised,
that a black runner could be so good about in long distance running.
Um, the racial stereotype at the time was that blacks were lazy and dumb and um,
that frustrated Frank because, and he would get this criticism a lot when he wouldn’t quite do as well as he had in other races.
Newspaperman would call him lazy and then he would counter how how can I be lazy if I’m trying to run for six days?
Have you ever tried it.

Jake:
[32:47] Right. It sounds like his next,
really big race, the Roosevelt, which I think is later that same year as he enters the race, there’s a really big reaction to his entry, and then,
especially afterwards, a lot of not so nice press coverage of the fact that there’s now a black champion of this race.
How was he trying, I guess, his team, because he did have a business manager and a trainer and a growing team at that time.
How are they trying to counter that messaging? What were they saying in response to that that negative coverage?

Davy Crockett:
[33:22] He finally broke with Daniel Leary and hired his own trainer and manager and you would think he’d hire somebody with a lot of experience. He hired 2 19 year olds, but unproven to to manage him.
But his selection was very good because the trainer he selected turned out to be the greatest trainer of the sport.
He would train multiple runners who would set world records.
And so I think they protected him because Frank, mostly behaved in public had a very good reputation at least during these early years.
And so I think they help him not get riled up with the racist comments that obviously would happen during, during the various races.
But at that rose belt race, he again won the equivalent of another $100,000.
And so he was he was just piling up the money.

Jake:
[34:24] Yeah, I could go for that. And it sounds like that’s about the first time where you, you uncovered documents where he would list his occupation just as pedestrian. Uh, where was the first time you encountered that?

Davy Crockett:
[34:26] Yeah.

[34:37] Yeah, definitely. He left the grocery clerk or occupation behind.
And so it’s kind of fun when you look on census records to see what they list and he listed pedestrian.
And it’s clearly a professional athlete that he and he was he was for the next few years, he was just he was seeking out ways to really earn a lot of money,
and a lot of winnings and win a lot of wagers.
And that was his primary motivation was really that.

Jake:
[35:12] And it’s not long after that. In in early 1880, he enters a race where he walks away with the world record what was his second appearance at the Ashley Belt race like that year?

Davy Crockett:
[35:19] He does.

[35:24] Well. This was this was called the O’leary belt. So daniel O’leary.
This, this, this famous guy that the problem with the major race in the world was,
a series called Ashley Belt and that was put on by,
englishmen and they they just didn’t like it when americans won the race because the rules are then the defending of the next race had to be in the country,
of that winner, that champion.
And so they just despised having these races be over in the United States where they’d have to travel and so they would do kind of nasty things like.

[36:05] Like schedule the races uh, really quick when people weren’t quite ready for them to try to get their champions to take to England.
So, old Larry started doing what he called the O’leary Belt race and this was, could only be held in America.
And um, so this was really the breakout race for Frank Hart.
Uh, he, he wanted and he broke the world record.
He reached 565 miles in six days.
And he, yeah, I think he won the equivalent of $630,000 at that race from.
It was a massive race. So much wagering, so many, tens of thousands of people would come and watch.
And so in one in just one year, he approached the equivalent of our money today of $1 million dollars.

Jake:
[36:58] Wow, that’s really impressive. Coming into the middle of his second year, the middle of his first full year of competition in 1880,
it’s only a few months after he clinches that world record, He has some pretty significant setbacks and has some pretty significant health issues.
In july 18 80.
His championship belts. From these, the o’leary belt, the Ashley belt are on display in a boston store front window, and he becomes very ill.
What did you learn about what he was suffering from at the time?

Davy Crockett:
[37:34] The clue is he had a daughter die at the same time and people haven’t picked up on that.
And so I looked at her her death certificate and she died of meningitis and I suspect he probably had it too because he was just he was down and out for a good month.
Uh you know many people thought he was dying. This trainer, his 19 year old came and nursed him back to health.

Jake:
[38:02] Which his trainer’s name at this point is Happy Jack smith, which I love that as a that appellation. So how was Happy Jack smith trying to cure this meningitis? What was his method?

Davy Crockett:
[38:12] Oh just yeah he was obeying doctor’s orders you know?
Which are probably pretty crazy things back then. But I mean his motivation, he wanted Frank to get back into health so he could compete again and defend the o’leary belt you know the next time.
And so that was part of his his motivation but he took good care of him. And after a month he finally was getting back into health. But I think it really affected him for at least a year.
Uh He would try to compete in races and not do as well as he expected. He would.

Jake:
[38:48] I was kind of surprised to read about some of the press reaction on hearing about this illness.
You would think, you know, this popular respected world record holding athletic champion would get sort of sympathetic articles when it comes down with a life threatening illness.
But that’s not really the way the press reacted when that champion was was a black man. What what were people saying about this, this meningitis?

Davy Crockett:
[39:07] No

[39:12] I think there was a lot of race involved a lot of,
racial things because the minute he would start to fail or not do well in a race then the criticism would really come which would be more than it was for other white runners at the time.

Jake:
[39:29] Well, like you said, it sounds like it took the better part of a year for Frank to get back to strong competition.
He sailed to England as part of a team that was going to race in october 18 80 in England and then another one of his kids died.
And there’s just a lot of speculation about whether he would be done with competition after all, the book made it sound like one of his several rivalries really helped draw him back into racing.
What what got him going on pedestrian is, um, again.

Davy Crockett:
[39:59] John Hughes of new york became his bitter rival.
John Hughes was not a nice guy,
and a lot of these ultra runners or pedestrians at the time would before they would compete in Madison Square Garden would go to Brooklyn and go to a particular track and train.
And so both Frank Hart and john Hughes would go there and john Hughes as they would run, would just throw out these nasty racial,
taunts at, at Frank and Frank’s trainer couldn’t hold them back and,
let’s just say a good fist fight occurred that day and Frank got him pretty good.
And not only did it happen in training, but it happened at the next race, they were both in john Hughes just despised Frank and would pull all these dirty tricks on him.
And so a lot of times these races would end up in some good brawls and fistfights and the police would have to come in and the crowds would go wild.

Jake:
[41:11] Would a mid rise mid race fistfight be disqualifying Or would the show go on at that? After that?

Davy Crockett:
[41:16] At times at times the show would go on.
Other times the police would stop the race is completely,
but I think that these, if I remember the show would go on, but usually one or one of the other runners who who got black eyes or whatever would have to fall out of the race.

Jake:
[41:37] Some of Hearts rivalries and thinking of, I think it’s named Charles role or raoul.
It was fierce competition but very friendly rivalry, good natured, at least rivalry, but fierce competition. And then you have guys like Hughes who are just bad spirited, violent.

Davy Crockett:
[41:46] The englishman.

[41:54] Yeah, so Frank would all would want to want to beat Charles Raul because he kept winning this Ashley belt.
You know, the world champion and Frank was just convinced he was much better than growl.
He wanted to go head to head against Raul, but Raul didn’t want to come to America and then when he did come, he refused to race against hard probably because he was afraid that he’d lose.
So he had, had all these things. But finally, finally Frank did go to England,
in 18 81 to compete in this, what was called the seventh Ashley belt race and um, he expected to do very well, but while he was there, his legs swelled up,
he got rheumatism, he said in him and he couldn’t do it.
But um, then what’s really sad is in Frank while he was off.

[42:50] On this vacation, I guess turned into vacation, he, he started betting on the horses and both in in,
England and in France and basically what I could tell is he lost at least a half of his fortune,
Frank had this pattern where he would win all this money and he was, he was known as a high liver, which means he would probably stay in posh hotels.
He wouldn’t really live at home in boston all that much.
He’d be traveling and staying in these nice places and then with wager both in the races on himself and and maybe on these horses too.
And so he would different periods of time in his career.
He was, he became penniless, he would lose it all and, and so then he would be kind of desperate to try to win the next race. So he could kind of pull himself out of this, this whole.

Jake:
[43:48] Well besides getting maybe a little too far down the rabbit hole with gambling during that 1881 European tour, he also found himself facing some pretty serious criminal allegations.
It seems like that turned out worse for him in the domestic press, here in the us than an actual criminal court in England. What what was that all about?

Davy Crockett:
[44:10] Well, the story was that at least from the saloon or house of ill repute, can’t tell which, that he and his friend, which is probably, uh, he brought a, he called him a servant over.
So it was a black friend that came over with him in England, I think the two went to this bar,
and, but he was accused by the lady there of stealing some money, he said, no, I didn’t and ended up hitting this woman,
and fleeing and then he got arrested.
And so that’s the story that went in the press and in England and in America just really tarnished his reputation back in boston, uh, you know, hitting a woman and being arrested.
But it turns out that, um, when it came up for trial, that it was, the case was thrown out. It looks like these people in this bar pretty much kind of made up the story that he didn’t really steal it.
When he came back to boston, he met with the boston globe at the time and gave his side of the story, said that he was innocent.
But that story never went across America only, only the bad story did.

Jake:
[45:31] It seems like this is the beginning of, uh, not universal, but off and on again stretch of pretty rotten luck for Frank Hart because he had gotten very significant earnings from his first couple of years of racing,
loses good bits of that fortune.
And then by I think 18 80 to the Suffolk County Sheriff is seizing and auctioning some of his properties on Beacon Hill.
So I guess, first of all, how much property did he end up with? And then, second of all, how did he end up in that position?

Davy Crockett:
[46:03] Yeah, it seemed to be all within that, that area in Cambridge Street, all within a few blocks of there. So I think he did own quite a few structures there.
But what happened was he decided one way for him to earn money was to put on a race himself and a lot of these race directors, they would make a ton of money.
So he put on a race in boston and many of the best runners in America came to run,
And part of part of this, how they want so much money after a while is they would be able to take a portion of the gate receipts uh, for that, people would pay to come and watch.
So like 50% of the gate receipts would go to the winning runners in different proportions.
And so when after Frank put on this race, unfortunately, what he decided to do was to take the money himself and not pay the winners of his race.

Jake:
[47:07] That’ll make you real popular when you try to hold your second race.

Davy Crockett:
[47:10] He quickly kind of left town boston got up in arms,
I mean he got crucified in the press over this and,
in fact, they decided to put on a benefit for the winner of the race, some sort of banquet and exhibition and charged admission to it.
And so they could at least give this poor winner of the race of money to head back to California with after that race.
That’s when he decided that boston wasn’t being friendly to him and he started to claim other places of being his hometown.
And then that’s when the sheriff had to see some of his property for auction there.

Jake:
[47:58] And this is a point when Frank, maybe gets sort of run out of town or maybe just decides to reinvent himself. But either way he like so many people in U. S. History heads West.
So how does he create a new life for himself in California and and the american west?

Davy Crockett:
[48:17] Pedestrian is um, in California had different waves of popularity and so he decided,
to try it out, I think several other runners went out with him and they would hold these races in this big mechanics hall in san Francisco,
and at least for a period of time,
you know, they don’t know his background and he kind of invented a false background.
He said he was a lawyer once that hit the san Francisco examiner I think. And boston saw it.
He said, oh, he’s a lawyer.
Yeah. So he kind of got caught on that, you know, but you know, he’s just embellishing his resume a little bit and,
and said that he broke world records multiple times, which he didn’t and, but that’s okay at least back then.
And he did really well, you know, he won races and earned a lot of money there in California.
Um, and he thought, hey, I’m going to make this my home, he went there multiple times and both times did really well.

Jake:
[49:27] As he’s both in California and in a few other places around the Western U. S.
He dabbles in other sports. Also, he needs trying things like cycling, roller skating, baseball, professional baseball. What tell us a little bit about the other sports he tried to make a go of it in.

Davy Crockett:
[49:45] Cycling. He told people he was a great cyclist, wasn’t he really struggled with it. So cycling started taking in the 18 eighties or late 18 eighties I think, started taking hold.
In fact, they started doing these six day cycling races and then they also started doing six day roller skating and that was back in Madison Square Garden.
He, he participated in the first six day roller skating race and he was hard at that.

Jake:
[50:17] Descriptions in the book are great. It sounds like he could barely stand up on the skates, and he was determined to compete despite having no idea how to roller skate.

Davy Crockett:
[50:22] Yeah, yeah.
He wouldn’t glide on. I mean just kind of plot on or something, but, but he try and try, I think he lasted over a day before he finally got out of that.

Jake:
[50:38] So I was like, he didn’t win that race.

Davy Crockett:
[50:38] But he did not and he did he did he never was good at cycling either.
And but he would try and others did this to once.
These races would go in waves of popularity and um when they started to dry up during certain years they would try these others you know they were good endurance athletes and thought they could do others.
But but at least Frank did figure out the cycling sport.
He, much later in his life became a very good trainer for these long distance cycle cycling and trained some very successful people.

Jake:
[51:21] After a couple of years of wandering Frank, Hart winds up back in Boston for at least a little while in November 1885.
And I wonder if we could just sort of take a minute and check in on what his life was like at that point, how much of a relationship he still had, if any, with his kids and his wife in Boston.
Was he financially supporting them in any way?
Did he still have a fortune left from his, his pedestrian ism winnings?
Where was his life at that point, as he comes back to boston for the first time in a couple of years.

Davy Crockett:
[51:55] So it seems like, you know, when he would come back the press would always say, wow, this is the first time he’s been back in 2.5 years or some or three years.
So it’s pretty evident that he wasn’t spending a lot of time even contacting his his family.
Although I did, I did find one instance where they said his wife attended one of his races in ST louis uh they said it was his wife.
I couldn’t make for sure that it was, but it seemed like he did get some news from home that he had his oldest son, which is also a Frank Hart.
Uh Junior was taking up running that he had, he was being successful in running and I did find a news article where indeed his son was doing that.
So he must have had some contact with his family, but really not much.
So yeah, by the 1885, yeah, it’s lifestyle, he would he would try to do different things like,
he did a barnstorming through Pennsylvania with another runner to,
try to they put races on,
and go to different cities and try at least once a month, put on these races to try to earn money, but you know, that didn’t last all that because they didn’t, they didn’t earn a lot of money and uh it just wasn’t working out.

Jake:
[53:19] It sounds like as the 1880s went on Frank, Hart’s body keeps failing.
His finances get more and more strained by the time he turns 30 in 1887. From outward appearances, it looks like he is washed up. His career is must be nearly at its end.
Well, will you tell us a little bit about how he got some of that good reputation back by running some good races and then starting to do more organizing and promoting.

Davy Crockett:
[53:51] You know, as I researched this, I didn’t know the end of the story.
You know, I was just researching all these newspaper articles and I would go year by year. And yeah, so when I reached that point, I said, oh man, this is it, he’s done. And then I would always be surprised.
Hold it. He he won another race. How did he do that?
I don’t know if he got a better trainer, He kept firing his trainers and getting new ones and probably getting his life life in gear and getting more focused and getting better training and then doing doing better.
So he going these waves of doing real well and then not real well.
In fact, after a while he got the reputation of being kind of a quitter in races.
So in the six day races you could keep piling up the miles for six days.
But what he would do is after a while he’d figure out, oh, there is no way I can win in the money, I’m too far behind. So I’m gonna quit on day three and save it for another another race.
And so he had a period of, I don’t know, a whole year,
where it seemed like he didn’t finish any six day races that he just really struggled and all of a sudden then he’d come back and it was like, wow, how long is he going to do this.

Jake:
[55:13] Well, I thought it was really interesting to note also that during this period, I think it was in the 1880s, or maybe the very early 1890s,
Hart was running a race and witnessed the six day record getting broken for this, the sixth time since he had set the record.
So that 585 mile record didn’t stand for very long.
I thought it was really interesting, though, because after that sixth time I read on, I think I expected, and probably a lot of readers would expect to see that it was broken again, you know, a week later, three months later, eight months later,
But that sixth record was unchallenged,
until 1980, for which a probably tells you that it was a darn good athlete that said it, but BI think it tells us something about the sport of pedestrian is um what what was happening to the sport by the late 1880s.

Davy Crockett:
[56:08] The sport would go in waves of popularity. But it was also very affected by a,
a very severe depression, financial depression in the 1890s for multiple years. And it was, it was bad.
It was like 40% up to 40% of the people were out, of in in unemployment, in some of these cities that these races would be put on.
So nobody is going to put on a race where nobody would come and pay their money to.
So, the sport after a while after they made these great accomplishments, I think a lot of the best athletes left it, uh, they, there was less opportunities to make money.
And so, I mean, it held on, there was a resurgent during the early 1900s for a few years, that Frank even did for a couple of years.
But then what really happened was then cities started passing laws against these type of races.
They thought that they were cruel, the theater, the clergy, everyone’s against them.
And so they made rules like an athlete could not compete for more than 12 hours a day.

[57:25] And so pretty, pretty much Kibosh, the six day races during the early 1900s. So Yeah, so it went into hiatus for decades until 1980.
They started appearing again.

Jake:
[57:41] During the 1890s, financial panic and depression, when a pedestrian is, um, was at a low point, and not many races were happening. That’s when Frank Hart is trying to make a living through other forms of athletics and, and being a trainer at that time.
So we just tell us a little bit about how he tried to keep the good times rolling, or at least to make a living while the six day races weren’t really being held.

Davy Crockett:
[58:07] So he was, I think he was a good trainer. So he moved to Chicago and was hired as the athletic director of the bankers athletic club in Chicago.
And in fact he was the groundskeeper basically on the property where the future Kaminsky Park is located.
And so he in fact, this is probably his, his first steady job of his life since he was a grocery clerk, that he was, you know, embraced by this athletic club and,
training them and and managing everything and it went well.
But finally the club decided to close its doors and uh, that that devastated him because he, he loved what he was doing there.
But that was, you know, late 18, nineties, I think early 19 hundreds.

Jake:
[59:02] Era, the late 1890s, is also the rise of Jim Crow. And what did the effect of the new racial codes across so much of the US due to Frank Hart’s career?

Davy Crockett:
[59:14] Well where it affected him, was in cycling and he wrote a pretty long article into the newspaper where he blasted the cycling organization at the time for being,
racist because they were not allowing black cyclists,
in their their clubs and their races where ultra running,
was, I mean all terrain was inclusive and thanks to Frank Hart and fred Englehardt of boston that they just said that we’re letting them in and that’s the way it’s going to be.
And back then they didn’t have these jim crow laws of segregation.
So during that period it was, it was good and Frank wasn’t the only very successful runner of his time, there were several others that were black runners that did really well.
But once Plessy versus Ferguson happened, uh it all got set back, All the segregation laws cropped up so over the, over the decades to come.
Uh it it’s like you needed to have another Jackie Robinson come forward and break the racial barrier again.

Jake:
[1:00:23] And just with the mention of, of Plessy V Ferguson, I will put a little plug in for the past episode 1 62 about a landmark massachusetts Supreme Court case, Mass SJC case,
that established the legal framework for separate but equal.
That would be more widely implemented. With Plessy V Ferguson.

Davy Crockett:
[1:00:48] Even later, some some some African American runners were allowed um,
in the late 1920s there was this very famous race across America that was nicknamed the Bunion Derby from from Los Angeles to New York, and um they allowed black runners in that.
And who did did quite well.

Jake:
[1:01:11] I was surprised to read about the women who competed in some of the early ultra running or pedestrian events because, you know, women weren’t accepted universally in in long distance running until what, the sixties and seventies.
I know we just passed the 50th anniversary of the first legal women to enter the boston marathon. So I was curious to see that there were women doing long distance events that long ago.

Davy Crockett:
[1:01:36] There were many and they did very well. I mean in the very early years they were,
there was 11 woman runner who think it was in Syracuse new york, she was arrested for wearing pants while she ran.
So I mean that’s what they were up against During the 19th century. These women would also go on these indoor arenas and and compete against other women and win quite a quite a bit of money and did quite well.
But that all went away. And the attitudes about women until early the 1960s,
started, you know, they had this this this thought that,
Long distance running would be hurtful the 1970s when they, you know, the ultra running women appeared and they started running 100 miles and so forth.
And and setting records again.
And uh and they blew past all the records of the women back in the 19th century.

Jake:
[1:02:42] How did Frank Hart’s life journey wind up? What was his life and his living like in the last few years of his life and then when and where did his his life come to an end?

Davy Crockett:
[1:02:54] So apparently he developed tuberculosis and which is pretty common back then.
It’s just so sad how many people died of that. And so he went to Denver to,
try to recover and I guess did a little bit, because then he was he was training some runners in some races later on, but it was just a couple of years later that he died in Chicago and he,
died penniless.
Uh He was given a pauper’s grave probably unmarked, buried in south Chicago.
No family members attended his funeral. So it’s kind of sad.
He had friends, but few near the end and he had no money.
And so the last couple years of life he had to be supported uh totally by his friends when he was ill.

Jake:
[1:03:45] Were you able to find out what happened to that that first wife, mary and their Children back in boston? He never had Children with the second wife, right, as far as you could tell.

Davy Crockett:
[1:03:54] No he didn’t. But yeah the first wife she died and you would think that well then he would start trying to take care of his Children. But he did and I did try to figure out his descendants and I did a lot of research there.
And it was surprising how few descendants he had for some reason they you know I had two adult Children But they didn’t have very many kids and their grandchildren didn’t have many kids.
But I did finally zeroed down on that. I think there’s about 3-5 living descendants now Frank Hart.
And I did find one and get one got in contact with her and she knew about Frank Hart as being her great great grandfather I think.
But she had no idea about his fame and what he did.

Jake:
[1:04:45] There are a couple other things I just want to ask about the racing.
So, first of all, if we’re talking about these arenas where you might have a track that was six or eight or 12 or 20 laps to a mile, Nobody knows what 12 laps to the mile track looks like.
Do do we think that the links were accurate? You know, were they really doing these 631 miles, or was was it really the distance shaved a little bit for promotional reasons?
And I don’t know is there is there any way to tell now whether those distances are for real?

Davy Crockett:
[1:05:18] What they would do for the big races they would bring in professional surveyors and so they would they would actually, in professional ways measure these courses.
Some of these barnstorming runners would just go create their own events, not measure the course is very well and claim these enormous amount of miles.
And usually those are pretty easy to detect. But these,
I’m pretty convinced that these big time races, these asleep belt races and O’Leary belt races that they they were,
they were well measured because you gotta remember they had enormous amounts of money being wagered in these things.
I mean, some races the equivalent of you know, $10 million dollars were exchanging hands in our value.

Jake:
[1:06:10] So the other thing I have to ask about as a recovering marathoner myself and still a runner, I have to ask a little bit about the gear.
What would the, the shoes, the clothing, things like that at one of these mid 19th century, 18 seventies, eighties, six day races be like, what would runners wear?

Davy Crockett:
[1:06:28] All sorts of things. Sometimes they were accused by the press of running around in their underwear.
Early low class folks, you know, but other times this, this Edward Payson Weston, he realized it wasn’t just a race, it was a show.
And so he would wear this velvet suit.
Uh was he was he was famous for. So yeah, a lot of times they would come in these very flashy costumes they call, in fact they would call them pedestrian costumes instead of running gear. And.

Jake:
[1:06:58] Yeah, and and velvet suits are notorious for breathing very well when you sweat, so it sounds very comfortable to race in.

Davy Crockett:
[1:07:06] But so they had, you know, they had problems with blisters and they tried all sorts of things. They, they would use, they would bathe their feet in alcohol a lot.
You gotta, you gotta think about how many miles they were running and um, how many times they would run over 500 miles in six days and what it would do to their body wearing these leather shoes.
Sometimes they get blisters so bad, they just run around in stocking feet I think.
And and the tracks, they were very particular on these tracks. These weren’t just wooden floors, they were saw saw dust and dirt kind of compressed. They would roll them out.
They would criticize certain races of having terrible, terrible tracks, but they would spend a lot of time and money in Madison Square Garden and then probably the boston music hall to, to try to make the tracks good.
And boston had a lot of races I think between 20 and 30 of these big time races. Uh.

Jake:
[1:08:05] Here in boston it sounds like the big venues were the boston Music Hall, Mechanics Hall and then I think I read there was a casino hall or casino building that some races were held in.

Davy Crockett:
[1:08:16] Yeah, so this casino hall, that was that big mechanics hall in the back bay.
Um yeah, so some guy leased it and then he renamed it for a year, the casino hall.
But then what happened is that whole structure burned down after only seven years of being there and killed eight people ice skating rinks and roller skating rinks were venues.
And so in boston Columbia rink, the south end skating rink, Winslow’s rink, hardcore cultural hall and a park garden.

Jake:
[1:08:51] Of those, at least Horticultural Hall still still exists. Yeah, right near Symphony Hall. So I think that’s the only one of those venues that still exist. But don’t quote me on that.

Davy Crockett:
[1:09:00] For a while, roller skating got to be pretty big and then in the winter they could convert into ice skating. And so they had a lot of these cities including boston would have multiple of these rinks.

Jake:
[1:09:10] Now, before we wrap up, I want to talk a little bit about you as well. So along with the book, which I’ll plug one more time Frank Hart, the first black ultra running star. You also host a history podcast of your own. Tell us a little bit about the show.

Davy Crockett:
[1:09:25] I do. It’s called the ultra running history podcast.
So about four years ago or more, I I started looking into the history of the sport and discovered that most of it’s being forgotten or being curated.
We had had races in the 19 eighties that claimed they were the first of the sport when they weren’t.
And so I write articles to try to set the record straight and after a while I said, gee I have so many stories here, why not create a podcast.
And as any new podcaster knows, that’s, that’s kind of scary thing to do.
But I jumped in and was amazed that the popularity at least within my sport that seems to be done doing well.
And the place you go, my website is ultra running history dot com.

Jake:
[1:10:20] Besides writing and podcasting about ultra running, you are yourself a veteran ultra runner. You have, I think, over 100 100 mile races to your tier name.
Have you ever had an opportunity to to run a six day race? Have you done Frank Hearts event?

Davy Crockett:
[1:10:37] I wish I could, but by the time I wished, I did my age was catching up with me and now I’m now.

Jake:
[1:10:47] Is it still an event that exists in 2022?

Davy Crockett:
[1:10:50] It is the sixth day race. Came back in 1980 as some, some runners started discovering in newspapers about these pedestrian races back in the 19th century.
And they said, whoa, we should, we should create our own race.
And so there was one put out, put on in California and then a few months later in New Jersey and that started the six day race coming back and It’s not like it was back then.
I think each year there’s about 20 races held worldwide. There’s one going on right now as we speak, as we’re recording this in, uh, in Glendale Arizona.
So they’re running around a one mile track around baseball fields for six days.

Jake:
[1:11:37] Well, more power to him. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Well, is there anything that you wish I had asked you today about Frank, harder about pedestrian ISM or about the sport of ultra running?

Davy Crockett:
[1:11:50] You have done your homework. Well, way better than most podcasters.
It’s just important that the, the reason I did this book is it’s not only about his athletic achievements, but it’s it’s about really being the Jackie Robinson of the sport,
Reportedly of all athletics back then in the 1880s.
Um, when he broke the color barrier, he was courageous and had to deal with all this racial hate against him, but still made it, you know, still was successful.

Jake:
[1:12:24] Our listeners should check out the ultra running history podcast.
The book one more time is Frank Hart, the first black ultra running star by Davy Crockett and we’ll have a link to purchase the book and subscribe to the podcast in the show notes this week. Davy Crockett.
I just want to say thanks a lot for joining us today.

Davy Crockett:
[1:12:43] Thank you very much for having me.

Jake:
[1:12:46] To learn more about Frank Hart, 19th century pedestrian ism and modern ultra running.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 265.
Of course I’ll have a link to purchase the book and I’ll also include a picture or two of Frank Hartness heyday plus, I’ll link to Davy Crockett’s ultra running history podcast so you can learn more about this most extreme of extreme sports.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hub history dot com.
We’re hub history on twitter facebook and instagram. If you’re on mastodon, you can find us there as at hub history at better dot boston.
Or just go to hub history dot com and click on the contact us link while you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode.
If you subscribe on apple podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do drop me a line and I’ll send you a hub history sticker as a token of appreciation.

Music

Jake:
[1:13:49] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.